I liked reading about Burton Kaplan's gambling addiction and how it got him involved in organized crime in the book The Good Rat. Here's an excerpt:
Q: Sir, you talked earlier about having a gambling problem. Can you tell the jury a little bit about that?
A: Yes. I was a compulsive gambler from the time I was thirteen.
Q: And how did that start?
A: I went to the racetrack with my father a few times, and then I started playing poker in the neighborhood, and I enjoyed it and I became sick with it.
Q: You said you became sick with it. What do you mean by that?
A: I couldn’t control myself. I was doing every bad thing to get money to gamble. I was thirteen when I started gambling, and then in 1975 I joined Gamblers Anonymous, and I didn’t gamble for thirteen years.
Q: And after joining and not gambling for thirteen years, what happened in the late eighties?
A: I went back to gambling. I didn’t become anywhere near as degenerate a gambler as I was.
Q: As a result of all this gambling you did, did you lose money?
A: In my lifetime? Probably around three million.
Q: Did you find yourself owing various people money?
A: Yes.
Q: And for how many years in your life did you owe people money with respect to your gambling habit, not like a house loan or something like that?
A: Probably from the time I was in my twenties until 1975.
Q: And did you have to borrow money from people to support your gambling habit?
A: When my credit got used up in the banks, I borrowed from finance companies.
Q: Did there come a time that you started borrowing money from family and friends?
A: Yes.
Q: And did there come a time you started borrowing money from loan sharks?
A: Yes.
Q: Did owing money from gambling lead to you becoming involved with organized-crime figures?
A: Yes.
